Last week, a woman was brutally attacked by a naked man in Vancouver, and the incident was so vicious that she didn’t even realize the man had urinated on her until after it was over.
Tekarra is a Vancouver-based lawyer, and the traumatic incident she was involved in was briefly touched on by the Vancouver Police Department in a news release sent out last week.
She agreed to speak with Daily Hive in an exclusive interview about the harrowing experience.
The 31-year-old said she was on her way to the gym in a small vehicle when she pulled behind a truck, limiting her visibility ahead. She got out of the car and began walking to the gym near Beatty and Pender.
“I’m walking down the street and get around the truck and there’s this guy naked on top of a car,” she told Daily Hive.
“He started yelling at me.”
Tekarra said she had a gut feeling to get away from this individual. She ran up to another man who was in front of her and asked for help. He answered her call for assistance and told the naked individual to back off. The bystander yelled at Tekarra to get away from the area.
She started running down the street, and the next thing she remembers was being on the ground with the man on top of her while she screamed for help.
She recalls someone else yelling, and she looked up to see someone running across Pender toward her. The original bystander who tried to help got involved again and was trying to pull the attacker off. The second bystander started trying to hit the suspect, yelling at him to get off Tekarra.
“Then my boyfriend, he just got to the gym, ran out.”
She remembers being pulled up by her boyfriend, recalling that he had to rip her out of the attacker’s arms, ripping her hoodie in the process. She didn’t realize that until after.
“When I got into the gym and after my boyfriend left to see what was going on, I realized that the guy had peed on me all over my back.”
Like the man urinating on her, there was a lot that Tekarra didn’t notice until after the attack because she was in such a state of shock. Fortunately, she didn’t walk away with any significant physical injuries. However, even days after the attack, when we spoke to Tekarra, she said her body still felt sore and had severe bruising on some of her body. She also felt like she experienced some whiplash from the attack.
Significant psychological harm was also inflicted as a result of this senseless attack.
The mental toll and the Vancouver experience
“I’m not someone who’s scared,” Tekarra said.
This attack has left Tekarra experiencing a wave of different feelings and emotions. The one that felt most palpable during our conversation was anger.
“I’m angry. It’s taken away a sense of safety and comfort in my own body and also empathy.”
Tekarra elaborated that she’s generally a pretty empathetic person, but the anger has left her feeling less empathetic for now. We wondered if she had gotten back into the streets following the attack, and what her state of mind is like mentally now.
“As time has gone by, more fear has set in that has been a barrier to leaving the house.”
She explained that she keeps getting flashbacks of the attack, but has managed to get out, just not to downtown by herself, needing her boyfriend to accompany her.
Tekarra attended high school in Vancouver, and we wondered if she had ever experienced anything similar.
“My mom actually used to work across the street from where this happened, so I spent a lot of time in that area when I was younger, and I’ve seen how it has gone downhill. I never felt uncomfortable in that area when I was a teenager.”
She added that she had never previously had a negative experience, but that more recently, she had developed a growing sense of discomfort when present in the area.
The aftermath and the lack of accountability
Tekarra told us she could feel the frustration in the first responders when they responded to her last Friday. This sparked a memory of when she called 911 a few years ago, when the first responders told her they “were not able to get to the people who need it who are active members of society.”
She acknowledged that it’s a difficult viewpoint.
“I think there’s an issue, and I don’t know what’s being done about it. From the little I’ve seen, it’s been happening for years, and nothing’s changed to address it.”
Tekarra shared that she had been in support of safe injection sites, but feels like the timing of the introduction of these sites and the decriminalization of drugs appears to have some correlation with the degradation of Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside and an increase in incidents like this one.
“It makes me question how we’re deciding to deal with this.”
She also acknowledged that this isn’t just a Vancouver problem, but one that is likely happening in other major cities as well.
“What’s working and what isn’t? I think that at the heart of it, whatever we’re doing isn’t.”
The ripple effect of an attack like this
While we hear about stranger attacks more frequently than most of us would probably like to, we don’t necessarily get the perspective that Tekarra was willing to share, which relates to the ripple effect of an attack like this.
We know how an attack can impact the direct victim, but it goes well beyond that, as she explained.
“It’s not just me who was impacted. It has a broader impact on the people in your life.”
Tekarra mentioned how upset and frustrated her mother was following the attack, and that her boyfriend was really feeling it. As were the people he works with.
“That’s something that I think sometimes we forget.”
Tekarra was incredibly grateful for the support she received from the Vancouver Police Department and other first responders who came to her rescue. She’s particularly thankful to the bystanders who came to her rescue, and she was upset that she didn’t have the opportunity to thank them, but she would love to be able to do so. If you were involved in the response, email vancouver@dailyhive.com.
How do we prevent this from continuing to happen?
Stranger attacks have unfortunately become somewhat commonplace in B.C., and more specifically in Vancouver, particularly in and around the Downtown Eastside.
Despite the City of Vancouver recently celebrating a claim that violent crime has hit a 23-year low. A decrease in overall violent crime does not suggest an increase in stranger attacks, nor does it provide comfort to people like Tekarra, or the woman who was visiting Vancouver from Toronto and allegedly nearly got murdered on the Seawall.
Tekarra wonders who the City is addressing this specific form of violence and how it’s managing the risk of stranger attacks.
Following the attack on the Toronto woman, we spoke to a former Vancouver police officer, Kash Heed. We asked him, based on his years of experience in law enforcement, what he would point to as potential solutions to prevent innocent people from getting mauled in the streets.
Sometimes, compassion is blamed for releasing repeat offenders due to their conditions, involving mental health concerns or substance abuse issues.
“Compassion is to put them into some type of program that’s going to correct the condition that they have,” Heed said, adding that it isn’t compassionate to have people sleeping in alcoves and living on sidewalks.
When asked why we see so many repeat offenders, Heed said, “I point the finger right back at David Eby.”
“It’s the administration of justice. It’s clear that if you’re a threat to society, it is clear that if you’re a repeat offender, you should be locked up.”
Heed said that Eby and Attorney General Niki Sharma should go to the chief judge and bang their fists on the table, saying, “Your judges are not enforcing the bill reform act the way it was intended to be. What are you going to do about it?”
We have also had several conversations with Sharma, trying to determine the work she is engaging in to keep the province safe. She told Daily Hive that it isn’t as simple as what Heed was trying to suggest.
“We’ve stepped up in a number of ways,” Sharma told Daily Hive.
Sharma said the province is working hard to allocate beds to those who need them most. She also told us she connected with Sean Fraser, Canada’s minister of justice. We inquired about the developments that arose from that meeting earlier this year.
“I’ve spoken with Minister Fraser, and he understands that there’s more work to be done,” Sharma said, without providing information about any specific or conclusive steps that were being taken.
Tekarra feels the way many B.C. residents do, based on comments we’ve seen on our stories and on social media.
“You shouldn’t be in society if you’re going to hurt people,” she said.